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Monday, March 14, 2011

Happy Pi Day!

What should you do to celebrate? Here are a few ideas reported in The Chicago Tribune:

In an after-school pi event at Walter Payton College Prep, students will throw hot dogs on a floor marked with evenly spaced parallel lines. Why? Because the proportion of hot dogs that cross the lines when they fall works out to be approximately one over pi, said Payton mathematics chairman Paul Karafiol.

One highlight of many Pi Day events is a competitive recitation of the numerous digits of pi, which modern computers have calculated to a trillion decimal places.

If reciting numbers or tossing meat aren't really your thing, then there are surely any number of other things you can do to celebrate pi. For example, a musician named Michael Blake set pi to music, creating a lovely and complex melody.

If you're not as ambitious as Blake, then just take a few minutes to watch his brief video. Consider it a fitting homage to the beauty of pi.

Reposted from Change the Equation

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Is your school graduating students who are college and career ready?

If you'd like to compare your high school's student percent scoring proficient on the MME to the student percent scoring proficient on the ACT College and Career Ready Benchmarks, check out the newly posted comparison document on MDE's website.
How do your school's percentages compare?
As we move toward the new assessment system under Common Core, our schools' scores will more closely align to that reported through the ACT College and Career Ready Benchmarks.
How can we increase the percentage of students who are assessed at the "proficient" level?